Category: Wii

This post is to help anybody that needs to reset their Wii’s screen resolution, whether that is because they have changed cables, or put it into the wrong mode.

The reason I have to fix my Wii’s resolution, is I own a New Zealand Wii, which defaults to PAL, and I have a US TV that only supports NTSC. Thus when my Wii resets (due to no power) it goes back into PAL mode and thus is usable.

There are a number of solutions posted on the Internet for resetting resolutions. With my PAL Wii I can confirm a couple of methods reset to system default (for me PAL):

Powering down for 5 minutes

Power on Wii, give it a few seconds to boot
Hold DOWN on the directional pad of the Wii remote
While holding DOWN, press the RESET button on the Wii

However, given our US TV is NTSC resetting to PAL is of no use, thus I present the order of screens for my Australasian Wii. To help with future manual resets.

Wait until the screen looks like picture one, this can take 5-10 minutes

Then relying on the vibration feedback, and limited screen left/right feedback, follow the set of screens to turn your PAL Wii into 480p mode.

Some advice I found on the internet was to use only the green channel of the component cable to plug into the composite plug. This did work to allow seeing the picture (albeit black & white) it was equally scrolling badly, thus was not a better solving mode.

I had already played the Game Cube versions of Pikmin 1 and 2 on the Wii but did not complete either game, so thought I’d by the Wii “New Play” version and give the game another bash. The game is identical to the GC version except the graphics are better. Some of the menu navigation is just as broken as the GC version, so I was disappointed, as they could have used the pointer of the Wii Remote to tidy this up, but the game is still fun.

LEGO Batman is amazing fun. The Lego nature of the graphics mean you give the game lots of slack as it’s not trying to be life like. The game really does look like everything is made of lego, and the characters are really well animated, with great humor. The game has the feel of the 60’s TV show, with lots of biffo and mindless henchmen running closer just to get punched. Biff! Pow! Wham!

So if you have not played either of the Pikmin games I’d give them a try. But definatly play the Batman game also.

The most outstanding feature has to be the assistance a second person can make. For the kids this makes the game, the second person gets to collect star-bits and hold (some) monsters. So they are playing together and the non-player isn’t just telling the player what to-do, as they have their own tasks.

Michaela’s playing this also, as there are six save games, and I’ve been playing assistant for her.

I found the plot very enjoyable, the game play and puzzles were ever changing, and therefore things were not too repetitive.

I played the 100 level cave, and got to level 87 in one hour before running out of health. Annoyingly I was ~1000 points away from a level-up, and the free hit-point regeneration that comes with it. But I’m not sure I will re-attemp the cave, before returning the game to Shannon, after all I still have Zelda – Wind Waker and Pickman 2 to complete!